Over 36 million Americans currently suffer from significant hearing loss. Numerous diseases and traumas can cause conductive hearing loss. Prevalent among these are: Cholesteotoma (bone/joint degeneration of the middle ear bones), mechanical trauma (exposure to exceedingly loud sounds), and barotraumas (exposure to the shock front of an explosive blast or supersonic projectile). Conductive hearing loss (CHL) occurs due to disarticulation of the ossicular chain.
Various types of ear implant surgeries have been developed to facilitate the mitigation or treatment of hearing loss. Some of these surgeries involve the installation of prosthetic implants into the middle ear of patients suffering from hearing loss. For many of the surgical procedures employed to install these prosthetic implants, the surgeon relies merely on an intuitive feel to provide proper placement and/or adjustment of components of the prosthetic implant. This means that, even for experienced surgeons, sub-optimal outcomes can be fairly common and placement of the prosthesis ends up being less than ideal. Accordingly, the implantation surgery may need to be repeated for improved placement. This, of course, increases cost. However, some patients may also be reluctant to engage in further procedures or may not recognize that further optimization is possible.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop an ability to monitor the effective placement of prosthetic implants during the surgical procedures in order to improve outcomes for patients.